


Across the Sea

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 06:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5080429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-season-six reunion fic; need I say more?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Another reposted Fandom Stocking fic from last year, [originally posted here](http://fandom-stocking.dreamwidth.org/542714.html?view=9726202&posted=1#cmt9726202).

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay home?" Elizabeth asked from the doorway, for probably the twelfth time. Baby Neal dangled from her arms like a squirmy sack of flour; he wasn't even crawling yet, but he'd managed to ooze halfway out of her grip.

"I'm sure. Just take Neal to daycare and go to work like normal." It would have been nice to have a day at home with El, but Peter couldn't justify her missing any more work. When she'd gone to DC, she'd left the business in Yvonne's capable hands with the expectation that Yvonne would eventually be taking over. Now, however, between pregnancy-related interruptions and Neal's birth, she was struggling to get back into the swing of running a business that had been nearly effortless for her two years ago.

"You'll be okay?"

"I'll be fine."

She tripped across the room in her heels to kiss him. "Let's see, you've got water, a snack, the TV remote --"

"I can get up and walk to the kitchen," Peter pointed out. "It's not _that_ much exercise."

Ever since the incident with the poisoned Armanac, they'd both been just that little extra bit paranoid about his heart, especially now that he was over fifty -- and Peter had had an attack of angina at work the day before. He'd ended up at the hospital until late, waiting through a series of tests that they still didn't have all the results back from, just enough to know that there were, currently, no serious abnormalities in his heart's rhythm and he hadn't had an actual heart attack. He was currently home, under strict orders to avoid stress or exercise until further results were obtained. El thought he should be abstaining from work as well, but Peter pointed out he'd probably end up out working in the garden from sheer boredom, so she'd relented -- just as well, since Jones had already emailed him a bunch of case files.

After she'd left in a swirl of perfume and baby powder, Peter settled down with the laptop. The house was very quiet, and he kept catching himself counting heartbeats. Which was stupid, he knew. Still, heart disease ran in his family -- his grandfather and uncle had both died of heart attacks -- and those tense, breathless moments at work yesterday had recalled all too clearly the terrible pressure in his chest from four years ago, as the poison killed him.

He was anxious and restless, and normally would go jogging to take his mind off it. Except exercise was out, according to his doctor. His hand twitched towards the TV remote -- at least that would distract him -- and then he forced it away, and tried to make himself concentrate on their latest loan-scandal case.

There was a light, quick knock at the door.

"Saved by the bell," Peter murmured, setting the laptop aside and sitting up. He glanced out the window as he got off the couch, but there was no delivery van or postal truck waiting at the curb. Could be a neighbor, perhaps. He wouldn't put it past El to send someone over to check up on him and make sure he wasn't facedown on the floor.

Whoever it was didn't wait for Peter to get there. The doorknob rattled; El had locked it on her way out. Peter was most of the way to the door when he realized the doorknob wasn't rattling in the way of someone testing it to see if it was locked -- it was more like a very systematic sort of jiggling and clicking --

The door came open just as Peter got there, and he almost ran into --

Neal Caffrey.

Neal.

Peter stared at him. Neal stared back. For a minute Peter thought he really _was_ having a heart attack: the tightness, the breathlessness, the constriction squeezing his lungs and pressing tight along his ribs ...

The last time he'd seen Neal had been as a body in the morgue. Intellectually, he knew, or at least suspected, that Neal was alive in Paris. The storage unit was either proof positive that Neal was alive, or the world's most elaborate and cruel practical joke, and Mozzie's disappearance all but confirmed it. Still, the main reason Peter hadn't bought a ticket to Paris and been on the next plane was because once he got there, he'd _know._ And he wasn't sure if he could handle losing Neal a second time.

Now Neal was standing on his doorstep. Even though he was _Neal,_ and therefore impeccably dressed, he had the characteristic flattened look of someone who had spent all night on a plane and was currently jet-lagged.

"Neal," Peter said, his throat unlocking enough to allow him to do that.

"Peter," Neal said, in a tone that sounded as strangled as Peter himself probably did. Neal was looking him up and down anxiously.

A small part of Peter's stunned brain said: _Manners._ "Come in," Peter said, stepping back.

Neal followed him in, but he didn't take his eyes off Peter, like he thought Peter would vanish if he did.

"Why are you here?" Peter asked, then ran it back and winced when he realized that it had come out somewhat accusing. He had no idea what he was feeling right now. His emotions were twisted into a giant complicated knot.

Neal took off his hat and then held it in front of his chest like a sort of talisman. "Are you --" Neal began, and then he stopped and started over. "You _look_ okay. Your heart. How's your heart?"

"How on Earth do you know about that? Did Elizabeth --" Then an even worse but all too likely suspicion occurred to him. "Did Mozzie bug my house?"

Neal's silence was incriminating enough.

"Oh my God. It's in that stupid teddy bear, isn't it?"

Neal's smile was faint and shaky, and then it hit Peter, really hit him, that Neal had flown across the entire Atlantic because of this heart-trouble thing -- and Neal was _here,_ standing in his living room. Breathing. Alive. And standing there with that same going-to-the-gallows look he'd sometimes gotten back in their shared White Collar Division days, the few times Neal had done something so utterly wrong that he was afraid Peter was going to revoke their deal and send him back to prison.

"Come here," Peter breathed, and grabbed him. Neal's hat was crushed between them, but Neal didn't even seem to mind; he gripped Peter back just as hard, hands fisted tight in the back of Peter's shirt.

"I can't believe you're here," Peter managed to choke out into Neal's hair.

"I -- I'm not sure I can, either," Neal said quietly into his shoulder. 

They broke apart with a kind of mutual reluctance, but Peter kept his hand on Neal's arm, and Neal twisted his hand around to grip Peter's sleeve. His eyes were bright. "Are you -- _are_ you all right?" he asked.

"Basically. Still waiting on some tests. Do you -- uh, want a drink or something? Coffee?" Peter tried to smile, but it seemed to come out a little wrong. "It's not French roast, but ..."

Neal made a choking sound, and for a minute the whole scene -- Neal's face and the familiar living room -- blurred. Peter blinked the tears away and then startled himself with a sudden laugh. "You're here," he said. "You're really here."

"I'm here," Neal said quietly, and he didn't let go of Peter's arm.


End file.
